Scholars were only recently able to establish that this coat was, in fact, the one Mr. Washington wore at his inauguration, said Adam T. Erby, Mount Vernon’s curator of fine and decorative arts.
The coat, in many ways, shows its age. Light has damaged the fabric, which is one of the reasons it is rarely shown. Moths have taken a visible toll. The buttons were ripped out long ago. Pieces of cloth were cut off and given away as mementos. It was last shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute as part of an exhibition in 2022, and according to Mr. Erby, it will go back into storage until the 2028 presidential inauguration once the current exhibition concludes on Feb. 3.
The rest of the items Mr. Washington wore that day — breeches, a waistcoat, a linen shirt, a type of decorative neckwear known as a jabot — are missing. Mount Vernon’s collections do hold a double-breasted brown suit Mr. Washington would have worn “when he was riding during the presidency,” Mr. Erby said.
“We have both the breeches and the jacket, which is pretty cool,” he added.
Yet the less adorned inaugural coat leaves more of an impression. Like other fashion classics — Diane von Furstenberg’s wrap dress, the Burberry trench coat — it captures a time, yet feels timeless.
“I think what’s important to know about the suit is the way that it sets the tone for every president afterwards in that it does not align the president with a sense of being above the people, but with the people, the same class as the people — even though that is a complete illusion,” said Philip De Paola, a graduate student at F.I.T. who is recreating a more elaborate suit that Washington wore for post-inauguration festivities.
While the fashion choices of first ladies are closely parsed, the president-elect today is expected to wear an unfussy overcoat — a must for a January day in Washington — and, beneath it, as bland a business uniform as imaginable. Golf outings and beach vacations allow for more casual clothes, and state dinners require formal wear, yet Americans will mostly see their president in some variation of that same sober suit.
But before today’s bulky overcoats, the navy suits and monochrome ties, there were Mr. Washington’s inaugural vestments, as welcome and surprising as democracy itself.